Re: [OT] HA without fallback-CBUS --- turned into pros/cons of Movable Type

[David Gumbrell <david.gumbrell@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Malcolm,

In the grand tradition of UKHA threads :-)

I'm reasonably computer literate but not a "webhead", so I wanted
something
with a bit of control, but not too much admin/html/css etc.  Movable Type
is
pretty easy to install and use. To install you have to create a MySQL DB on
your host, configure a couple of parameters in the config file and then FTP
a bunch of stuff to your host.

Once there, it's got a nice control panel and it's very easy to create
(simple) posts etc. If you upload an image it can build the HTML to cut and
paste into your text to get the image embedded (or popup). It's about the
same difficulty level as using a web-base forum to post. The one hassle
I've
had is that my host didn't have image::magick installed, so the automatic
image thumbnailing doesn't work, and I haven't managed to get the
alternative (NetPBM) working either. So all my posts have large embedded
images, which is not good for dial-up readers. You'll note that I haven't
attempted/bothered with any stylistic customisations of MT, so I don't know
how complicated that is to do.

Having said all that ... although Movable Type is currently free for small
blogs (one author), it is not open source, and they upset a lot of people
by
changing the licensing conditions after building up a community of users
(for example, if you wanted your father to author into your site, you may
find you need to pay for that licence). Having done it once, who's to say
when they might do it again.

A mass exodus to WordPress resulted. Many hosts will have an automatic
means
to install WordPress from the control panel, but not MT, due to the
licensing situation. I haven't used Wordpress, so can't comment on ease
etc.

Depending on how you have your hosting sorted and where you want your
father's stuff to appear, you may want to consider either WordPress (open
source and free) instead, or one of the paid blogging services, like
TypePad
or even Blogger (which I think is free). I plan to migrate to WordPress
before I have built up too many posts that will require care to avoid link
breakage.

Hope that helps,

Cheers,
Dave

On 1/18/06, Malcolm Surgenor <malcolm@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Totally off-topic David but I wondered how you've found Movable Type? 
Was
> it easy to set up and how easy has it been to publish info. The reason
I
> ask
> is I publish some info weekly for my father via a web site but I'd
love to
> get him publishing it himself.  He's not very computer literate but
types
> the info in Word at the moment to send to me so it can't be a huge
leap to
> typing it (or copy and pasting) into something else and pressing the
> button
> marked "Now Publish on Web"! :-)
>
> I've been looking around for something that would be very easy to use
in
> that way for some time but haven't found anything suitable so I'd be
> interested in your comments on Movable Type. TIA
>
> Malcolm
>
>


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